VHSAPLitandComp - My Sister's Keeper

During our Contemporary Fiction unit at the end of the year, we will be reading novels and writing responses to various prompts developed from quotes from the text.

You may choose to write a fictional, biographical, or autobiographical narrative, essay, or poem.

If you are not engaged by any prompt in particular, you are permitted to respond to another quote that may have leapt off the page to you or to reflect on something personal. There are some quotes without prompts; feel free to respond to them if you so desire. If you find yourself uninspired by any of the prompts and are unable to find a quote or topic about which to write on your own, you are welcome to go back to a previous section's prompts/quotes and choose from there as well. The goal is to write in response to some motif, theme, or emotion from your experience with the text.

Guided Journal Questions:

Reading 1 (pp. 1-46):

Read the quote from Carl Von Clausewitz on the Prologue title page. How is this true? Can you think of a war (literal or metaphorical) started without the intentions or methods clear beforehand?
The speaker’s father in the Prologue is “tucking in the house for the night.” Write about either the things your parents do or what you plan to do when you have a home to “tuck it in.”
Anna opens her first chapter with an anecdote about learning about sex. Write about the first time you learned about sex.
Why do you think people have children?
Anna notices a teddy bear with a missing eye in the pawnshop. Write its story.
What’s “the one thing in the world you would never part with”? Why?
Anna describes herself in a paragraph on page 9 (paragraph beginning “If Mr. Webster had decided…”). What word would Mr. Webster insert for you? Rewrite the paragraph describing yourself.
How true is the metaphor Sara uses: “Every holocaust starts with an ember. You just have to know what to look for.”?
Brian tells us “a fire can’t burn forever. Eventually it will consume itself.” Write about a time when your metaphorical fire consumed itself.
Brian also tells us “supernovas, they’re brighter than the brightest galaxies. They die but everyone watches them go.” What supernovas can you think of that everyone watched go?

Reading 2 (pp. 47-72):

Anna reflects “there are always sides. There is always a winner, and a loser. For every person who gets, there’s someone who must give.” Is this true? Why?
Sara realizes that “it’s so easy to presume that while your own world has ground to an absolute halt, so has everyone else’s.” Write about the first time you realized that the world still does go on without you.
Picoult uses tremendous detail about Sara’s first experience in the oncology ward. Write about an experience, real or imagined, you’ve had when you’ve been that scared.

Reading 3 (pp. 73-98):

Picoult writes an anecdote from Campbell’s youth about his experience sailing with his father. Write about a time when you’ve wanted to make someone proud of you, and feel that you didn’t. Or write about a time when someone has disappointed you.
Picoult describes Sara’s reference to Kate’s death-sentence hanging in the air “like a too-ripe fruit.” Write about a time when your words hung in the air, wishing to be recanted but waiting to be harvested.
What does Kate want Jesse to tell Anna?

Reading 4 (pp. 99-138):

Do you agree or disagree with Sara’s and Brian’s decision to create Anna to save her sister? Why?
Julia reflects on the year she realized “love doesn’t follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable.” Do you agree? Why?
When Campbell sees Julia, he thinks, “Where are words when you need them?” Why do we lose the words when we need them most? Write about a time when you were at a loss for words – describe what you were feeling so other’s can feel it when they read it.
Using the same quote from above, write it from the words’ perspective.
Anna describes parents as looking like “the tightrope guy at the circus [who] wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he’s really just hoping he makes it all the way across.” Describe your perceptions of parents in a single sentence.
Anna looks through the pictures in her house and thinks, “A photo says, You were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch.” Look through the photos in your house. Tell their story.
Anna describes her conversation about death with Kate as “making my skin itch in places I knew I would never be able to scratch.” Write about a time when a conversation made you that uncomfortable.

Reading 5 (pp. 139-177):

What is the significance of Brian’s profession?
Brian says “the safety of the rescuer is of a higher priority that the safety of the victim. Always.” How does this apply to his family?
Brian tells Julia, “Dark matter has a gravitational effect on other objects. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it, but you can watch something being pulled in its direction.” Write about a time when you’ve either experienced this or witnessed it happening to someone close to you.
The bartender, Seven, tells Julia, “Nobody wants what they’ve got.” How is this true?

Reading 6 (pp. 178-200):

Anna asks, “Why are terms of endearment always foods? Honey, cookie, sugar, pumpkin. It’s not like caring about someone is enough to actually sustain you.” Do you think caring about someone is enough? Why?
Same quote: create a list of terms of endearment NOT about food, and explain why they fit.
Brian thinks “the human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first.” Write about a time when you thought you’d never be able to endure another minute. How did you manage to?

Reading 7 (pp. 201-239):

When Campbell brushes Julia’s cheek, he reflects on the time when they were “learning the shape of each other.” What do we do to truly learn the shape of each other (with friends, romances, family)?
Campbell wonders if Jesse has a memory “he’s held onto all these years – sitting on the front lawn and feeling the grass cool down after sunset, holding a sparkler on the Fourth of July until it burned his fingers. We all have something.” Write about your something.
“There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it’s the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It’s far easier than telling ourselves the truth.” What types of “things” does this refer to? Have you ever done this? Why?

Reading 8 (pp. 240-271):

Why does Jesse save Rat?
Anna thinks, “The really amazing thing about all this is no matter what you believe, it took some doing to get from a point where there was nothing, to a point where all the right neurons fire and pop so that we can make decisions. More amazing is how even though that’s become second nature, we all still manage to screw it up.” How do you think we all got here? How do you explain our progression? Our imperfections?
Sara wonders “if Anna can hear the cheering through her helmet, or if she’s so focused on what’s coming toward her that she blocks it all out, concentrating instead on the scrape of the puck and the smack of the sticks.” How is this true of Sara? How is this true of anyone going through a difficult stage in life? Write about a time when you were focused on the “scrape of puck and the smack of the sticks.”

Reading 9 (pp. 271-307):

Anna asks, “What age are you when you’re in Heaven?” If you believe Heaven exists, what age are you? What’s it like? (Think about The Lovely Bones, if you’ve read it.)
Anna remembers when she learns “that neither Santa, nor my parents, were what I wanted them to be.” Write about when you learned Santa wasn’t the real deal.
Julia describes her memories of summer on pg. 279. Write a short, descriptive paragraph encompassing your collective memories of summer.
Julia and Campbell discuss which animal they’d be if they’d been incarnated as such. Which animal would you be? Why?
Anna comments that “kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I’ve decided, is only a slow sewing shut.” Do you agree with her? Why?
Anna thinks, “that maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.” Do you agree? Why? Write about a time when you did something you never thought you were capable of when you least expected it.

Reading 10 (pp. 308-349):

Brian says “there’s something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there’s a whole story in who’s left behind.” Tell that story.
Why doesn’t Brian tell anyone about Jesse’s “hobby”?
When Brian confronts Jesse, he thinks, “So I do what I know will destroy him” before he hugs him. Why would that destroy him? Why is it necessary to destroy him?

Reading 11 (pp. 350-385):

Sara says, “The shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation, and to others, like a pearl.” How important is our perception? Write about a time when your perception of a situation was the antithesis of someone else. How did those perceptions clash?
When Julia describes the “twenty spools of thread” needed to make the pattern of her bag to Anna, Anna replies “Truth’s like that.” Write about a time when the truth was indeed woven from so many different spools.
When Anna is on the stand, she thinks “a lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your mouth expecting toffee filling and you get lemon zest instead.” Make a list of emotions. Write a sentence for each, describing their taste.
Brian notes, “There are just as many stories to be told in the dark spots as there are in the bright ones” when discussing the stories created about the constellations. Tell a story from the dark spots of life.
Julia tells Campbell, “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” How true is this statement? Write about someone you love. What are their imperfections? How does that make you love them more?

Reading 12 (pp. 386-423):

When Anna’s riding in the car with Campbell, she reflects on the different stages she’s gone through with what she wants to do with her future. Write about your stages. How many times have you changed your mind? What made you do that? Do we ever stop thinking in possibility? Why?
Kate says, “There should be a statute of limitations on grief.” Does grief ever end or does it simply ease?